Adobe Photoshop Elements 9

Version nine of Adobe Photoshop Elements has now been released. It is in any case recommended for those who do not yet have this photo editor at home. In addition, very useful and time-saving features have been added, which make an upgrade worth considering if you are already using an earlier version.

Version 9 of Photoshop Elements incorporates a number of intelligent features from the professional Photoshop CS5. For example, it is now possible with a stroke of the tool Quick Healing Brush to remove complete image elements and to repair damage in, for example, scanned photos. The program does this by analyzing the photo and automatically filling the background (this is called Content Aware). Waste bins, passers-by, cords: it used to take a lot of clicks with the clone stamp to remove them invisibly. It works remarkably well and can save you a lot of time. Even if in complex situations some additional repair work is needed with other tools.

Remove image elements from a photo with a few brush strokes.

New features easy to use

On tab With instructions you can now make an object or person pop out of the photo. This is called it Beyond the Borders Effect. Also, the style of one photo (such as color and light information) is now easy to copy to another photo. If you like to make panoramas, Elements will fill in the 'gaps' for you, which almost always arise at the places where the photos are welded together. This again happens with the Content Aware technique. Much to our relief, layer masks have finally been added to Photoshop Elements, allowing you to make layers partially transparent. In other words, making local changes has now become a lot easier.

You can also easily make photo books yourself. You select the best photos from an outing or party, choose a layout and you can get started right away. What's extra nice is that the photo book can be printed on your own printer and you are not tied to a printing center. Very handy to play with some options without obligation. In advanced mode, the photos you place in the book are still editable. And so many more innovations and improvements have been made to this version of Photoshop Elements and its management tool (Organizer).

The Beyond the Borders effect brings your photos to life.

Conclusion

The great strength of Photoshop Elements lies mainly in the many intelligent functions that allow you to complete complex tasks with a few mouse clicks. There are no other photo editors that can do that so well and quickly, except of course Photoshop (CS5). Photoshop Elements 9 now contains even more useful functions and they are certainly no unnecessary frills. Just magically repairing and improving it by considering the content of the photo will save you a lot of time and effort. A new version becomes available every year, which makes it difficult for existing users to assess whether an upgrade - which is relatively expensive - makes sense. Besides separately, you can also buy Photoshop Elements 9 as a bundle with Adobe Premiere Elements 9, so that you can also edit movies and HD movies (149 euros or 125 for an upgrade). Photoshop Elements is not only for the PC, but also for Mac OS X.